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Adding Narrative Text to Results Using Oracle BI Narrative View

Use the narrative view to add one or more paragraphs of text to appear with the results. Narrative text is useful for providing information such as context, explanatory text, or extended descriptions. You can perform the following actions in the narrative view:

• Type a sentence with placeholders for each column in the results.
• Specify how rows should be separated.
• Use HTML formatting buttons to make text bold, italic, or underlined, and insert line breaks.
• Apply cosmetic formatting to the fonts used in the narrative view, or import the font formatting from a previously saved view.
• Add references to variables

Example Usage Scenario for the Narrative Text View

A user creates a request that returns the region name in the second column as part of the result set. The user wants the narrative view to appear as shown in the following example, with introductory text and each region listed on a new line:

This report shows your sales by region. The regions are:

East Region
West Region

The following table lists and describes the user's narrative view entries:

Reserved Characters in the Narrative View

In the narrative view, the following characters are reserved characters:

@     (at sign, unless used as a column placeholder in the Narrative text box)

[     (left bracket)

]     (right bracket)

'     (single quote)

\     (back slash)

NOTE:  If you want to include a reserved character, precede it with a backward slash character (\) to escape it. For example, to include a backward slash character in narrative text, type \\.

Adding or Modifying an Oracle BI Narrative View

The following procedure provides the steps to construct a narrative view.

In the Prefix, Narrative, and PostFix text boxes, you can use the HTML formatting buttons to make text appear in bold, italic or underlined type.

NOTE:  To include a line break, use the Line Break button. Pressing Enter does not result in multiple lines of text.

To add or modify an Oracle BI narrative view

1. In Oracle BI Answers, create or modify the request with which you want to work, and then perform one of the following actions:
   • To add a new narrative view, click the Results tab and choose Other Views > Narrative from the views drop-down list.
   • To edit a narrative view, click the Results tab, choose Compound Layout from the views drop-down list, and then click the Edit View button for the narrative view.

     The workspace shows the options and settings for the view.

2. Enter your selections for the fields in the workspace.

   The following table describes the fields.

   Narrative View Workspace Field	Comments
   Prefix	Specifies the header for the narrative. This text appears at the beginning of the narrative. You can use the @{variableName}{<value>}[format] syntax to include a variable. For example: Prefix - Region:@{myFavoriteRegion} - Year:@{myFavoriteYear}.
   Narrative	Indicates the narrative text that will appear for each row in the results. Use @n to include the results from the designated column in the narrative. For example, @1 inserts the results from the first column in the narrative, and @3 inserts the results of the third column. You can use the @{variableName}{<value>}[format] syntax to include a variable. For example: Narrative - Region@{myFavoriteRegion} - Year:@{myFavoriteYear}.
   Row Separator	Specifies a row separator tag. Then, you can enter the desired row separator in the Row Separator text box.
   Postfix	Specifies the footer text that appear at the bottom of the narrative. You can use the @{variableName}{<value>}[format] syntax to include a variable. For example: PostFix - Region@{myFavoriteRegion} - Year:@{myFavoriteYear}. NOTE:  To display the footer information on a separate line from the actual narrative text, include markup tags in the postfix text box. Make sure that the narrative ends in a row separator, or that the footer begins with a row separator.

3. To apply cosmetic formatting to the font used in the narrative view, click the format view button.

   For information about applying cosmetic formatting, see Applying Cosmetic Formatting to Results and Dashboards.

4. To import the font formatting from a previously saved view, click the import formatting button and navigate to the saved view.
5. When you are done, you can save the request with the narrative view.

Related Topics

Overview of Oracle BI Answers

Performing Common Tasks When Working with Oracle BI Views